banana pudding
by Kirby's Cowgirl
Summary: A story about Littlejohn's family


_Copyright 2/14 by Kirby's Cowgirl_

_Fan-Fiction based on TV Show Combat! Copyright Selmur Production, Inc, ABC, Image _

_Productions etc._

_Disclaimer: Combat! and its characters do not belong to me, t__his WWII story is a piece of fan-fiction__ and I am not being compensated in any tangible way for this story._

Banana Pudding

Mark Mumford pulled the mail from the box and felt a cold fist of fear slam into his gut. The overseas envelope had _roses_ on it. _Jimmy had been wounded, and had asked one of the nurses in the hospital to write Mavis if he died. Jimmy. Always thinking of Mark's cherished daughter. _A letter from a woman would be more compassionate than anything his CO could write. He shook himself back to reality. He could _hide_ the letter, he supposed. But that would only delay the inevitable.

"Mavis!" he called, as he entered the house.

"In the study, Daddy!" she answered him.

The August heat was sweltering. She was sitting in front of the fan at her little desk, writing a letter to Jimmy. She wrote her sweetheart every day. Mark hadn't had the heart to tell her that the censors chopped her letters to bits, and that Jimmy probably only got a few words out of each one, if that. She was lucky to get one letter a month from him, and he evidently knew what he could tell her, his were very seldom cut up.

"You got a letter." Mark said, hoping she wouldn't notice his voice was trembling.

"Did you and Mama have another fight?" Mavis took it from his hand. "You need to sit down. It's brutal out there. I've hosed the horses off three times already."

She slit the envelope with a letter opener, and started reading, and Mark held his breath.

Mavis glanced up, and then she looked at her father accusingly. "You thought this was a Dear Jane letter!"

If there was one thing Mark knew, it was that Jimmy Littlejohn loved his daughter, and would quite cheerfully have cut off his own arm before he did _anything_ that remotely distressed her.

"I was afraid he was hurt, and asked one of the nurses to write you."

"Daddy!" she reached over and squeezed his hand. "Captain Alex West, the lady who wrote this, well her husband is in Jimmy's squad. Jimmy told her that his Mom and I were trying to find a different dessert to enter in the fair, and she sent me a recipe." Mavis looked at the letter thoughtfully. "I bet she's married to Sergeant Saunders. She's an officer, and the army has these stupid rules about fraternizing with enlisted men. Doc's single. Caje's wife is named Marie, and poor McCall doesn't know who he's married to. No decent woman would have Kirby. She has to be married to the Sergeant."

Mark chuckled in spite of himself. He'd heard of Kirby's escapades, very watered down versions to be fit for his daughter's ears, he was sure.

"I'm going to take this over to the Littlejohn's and see what Mom says." Mavis said, pushing back from the desk. She had been calling Gladys Littlejohn "Mom" since she was six years old, when she had decided that was going to marry Jimmy.

"You could make whatever it is for me." Mark suggested. "I took your Mother to the train station. She went to New York for a week."

"Hot Damn!" Mavis said, jumping up.

"Mavis!" he tried to be shocked, laughed in spite of himself, as she went tearing into the kitchen calling to the cook that she needed _bananas!_ His wife did not appreciate their daughter cooking, and made no secret of the fact that she thought the Littlejohns were beneath them. His wife would be perfectly happy if Jimmy died in France, no matter what that did to Mavis.

An hour later, Rosalee stood with her arms crossed, trying to glare at Mavis and not succeeding. "You're going to ruin your dinner. And after I sweated over that hot stove all day."

Mavis hugged the cook, who was more of a mother to her than her own had ever been. " Thank you for making the meringue for me. What do you think?"

"I think that smells wonderful, looks revolting, and probably tastes like something men would fight a War over." She took the spoon from Mavis, and scooped up three big helpings. Mark sat down with them at the table.

"Me and my big mouth." He thought. The dessert in his dish looked like hog slop. He didn't even want to taste it.

He waited while Rosalee dipped her first spoonful, blew on it to cool it off a little, and put it in her mouth. The expression of sheer bliss on her face had him diving in his own dish of pudding.

"It's good." He said surprised. "It's _really_ good."

Rosalee nodded. "Never heard of such a thing, but it tastes mighty fine."

"Alex said her grandparents were from South Carolina and they eat this all the time there." Mavis still hadn't tasted her own pudding. "It was really nice of her to send me a recipe. I should join the WAC's."

That statement had Mark choking, and Rosalee shook her head at the girl. "Mavis, you're too small to be a WAC. The army can't re- design all their trucks so you can drive them. Your Daddy done spoilt you. Why aren't you eating?"

Mavis took a bite, and grinned. "It _is _good! I thought you were just being nice!"

"You get Miz Littlejohn to make the meringue for you, and have a joint entry in the "other desserts" category, and I think you've got a winner." Rosalee finished off her pudding, looked at the big pan still sitting on the stove and sighed. "Well, should we have another helping of dessert, or should we eat our dinner now?"

"I can keep practicing." Mavis said, pouting.

"Mavis, honey, in this heat, it's luck as much as skill that makes meringue set. You can't be wastin' Miz Littlejohn's eggs while you practice."

"I'll take -"

"And you can't be hurting Wayne Littlejohn's pride by toting eggs over there." Mark said firmly. "Do what Rosalee tells you."

"I could just give the recipe to Mom and let her make it." Mavis said thoughtfully. "Wouldn't that get old Mrs. Hensley's goat if she won a clean sweep in everything?"

"Mavis, everybody knows Mrs. Hensley's cook makes all her entries. That woman can't boil water." Rosalee sighed. "And it ain't right, she's such a thorn in Miz Littlejohn's side. Gladys'd give you every last crumb of food in her kitchen if you was hungry."

"And it's not fair that Mr. Hensley's a judge either." Mavis said, shooting a glance at her Dad.

"Oh, no, I'm not getting involved in that." He held up both of his hands in mock surrender. "Let's have some dinner, and then some more dessert."

One week later

Mavis watched as two of the Littlejohn men dove into their banana pudding. Jimmy's Dad, Wayne, would never say anything uncomplimentary to his wife. She'd have to wait for Gladys to translate if he really liked it or not. Jimmy's older brother Bob had been badly wounded on Omaha Beach, and he'd just come home. He was still on crutches, and was a completely different person from the fun loving boy he'd been before the War.

Wayne inhaled his bowl of pudding, looked up at his wife and Mavis. "I guess I'm the guinea pig?"

"Did you like it?" Mavis asked worriedly.

"It's really good." Bob said. "Can I have some more?"

He had hardly said two words since they'd picked him up at the train station, and Gladys looked at him in shock.

"I'm sorry, mama." He swallowed hard. "Dinner was really good too." His eyes filled with tears. "I'm tryin', but it's just hard."

Wayne reached over and laid a big hand on his son's. "You just take your time and heal up. We're here for you."

Mavis got up and got them some more pudding. "The lady that sent me the recipe is married to one of the guys in Jimmy's squad. She's a WAC, and she told me she works with some really stupid people in intelligence."

Wayne looked at Mavis, and started laughing, and in a few minutes Bob did too.

"Did she really say that, Mavey?"

"Yeah. She did." Mavis looked at Bob, wondering if Jimmy was going to come home as messed up as he was. If she was going to be able to put him back together. When she wrote Capt. West to thank her for the recipe, she would ask her if she could keep an eye on Jimmy. She would ask her if he was _really_ alright, as he claimed to be.

"I'll help you with the dishes, Mama." Bob said, struggling to his feet.

"You'll do no such thing." Gladys said firmly. "Mavis and I will knock these out in no time."

Wayne got up and looked out the back door. "Bad storm rollin' in." he said. "Mavis, I better take you home. I don't want you ridin' your horse in this. Looks like it might hail."

"I can take her." Bob offered. "If the weather gets too nasty, I'm sure Rosalee will let me sleep on the couch."

"I'll help you clean up first -" Mavis started.

"Gladys and I will clean up the kitchen." Wayne said. "Bob, you get Mavis to help you fork some hay down for her horse and make sure he's set for the night. Close the big barn door behind you."

Mavis pulled Bob's rain slicker off the rack at the back door, and folded it over her arm. "If the weather gets nasty, I'll make him stay. The phone will probably go out."

Bob reached and added Jimmy's slicker to his, and squeezed Mavis's hand when she saw how she rubbed it. "He'll be ok." He said softly, as they went to tend to her horse.

"Tucket, you're gonna stay here tonight." Mavis told her horse as she filled his water bucket to the brim. "But don't think you're retired, or anything." The two old draft horses in the stalls next to him looked at her with their big kind eyes, and she rubbed both of their noses as she went by, making sure their buckets were full too. She and Bob forked hay to all the animals in the barn, and she looked at the cats. "Do you want me to shut them in the extra rabbit hutch? I'll clean it up if they make a mess."

"If you make them stay back while I get the door closed, they'll probably stay in the barn."

The first crack of thunder made Mavis jump, and the sheet lightning that followed made the horses whinny.

"Help me get the door closed, Mavey!" Bob yelled over the rising wind. "Then you run for the house. I'll stay with the stock."

Mavis pulled from the inside and Bob shoved from the outside and between them, they finally got the door closed and barred. Wayne and Gladys burst in thru the side door, Wayne instantly heading for this big horses. A quiet hand from him, and they both calmed down.

"Rosalee called and asked if you could spend the night." Gladys said. "It's really bad over there already. She said for you to just ride Tucket home thru the fields in the morning. Power lines liable to be down."

"Okay." Mavis said, sitting down on a bale of straw in front of Tucket's stall. He was watching the big horses, not sure why they were afraid. _His person_ was there, and the big man he really liked who fed him carrots and sugar when no one else was around. There was nothing to be afraid of. He snorted, and Mavis reached up a hand to his nose.

The cats flew down from the loft where they'd been hiding under hay bales, two of them jumping on Gladys's lap, the favored position. Two more settled for Mavis, and the slowest of the bunch had to make do with Bob. The big tomcat jumped up on Wayne's shoulder, and let them know that he was _protecting his human_, but they all saw that he held on a little tighter than he needed to, even though he never actually clawed Wayne.

The storm finally blew itself out, and a slow steady rain started falling. Wayne lit a lantern and he and Mavis went and walked the closest fields, to make sure a lightning strike hadn't started a slow burn. Bob hobbled back to the house with Gladys and by the time they got back, she had popcorn ready for them.

"Thought you might like to sleep in this." Gladys said to Mavis, handing her one of Jimmy's old football jerseys from junior high.

Mavis looked longingly into Jimmy's room.

"Don't tell your Mama." Gladys said with a smile on her lips, and Mavis slept the night thru in Jimmy's bed.

Two months later

Littlejohn looked up from his letter. "Listen to this! Other desserts, winner, Gladys Littlejohn and Mavis Mumford for Southern banana pudding!"

"Alright!" McCall said.

"Mom made the meringue and Mavis did the rest. She can't get her meringue to set. I guess it's hard to do."

"What's meringue?" McCall asked.

"The white stuff on the top." Doc said.

"Oh yeah, I knew that." McCall shrugged. "Gosh, it's been so long since I had any dessert!"

"We knew something was up when Mr. Hensley ate his whole bowl of pudding and then went back and got the big dish and started eating out of it." Littlejohn read, and then he started laughing so hard that he got choked.

"You ok?" McCall asked worriedly, seeing the tears streaming down the giant's face. "Doc?"

Littlejohn waved Doc off, handed McCall the letter, and pointed . McCall read it, and then he looked at Littlejohn and started laughing too.

"What's so funny?" Doc demanded. He read where McCall pointed, shook his head. "I don't get it –" Then, "OH!" he looked over at Saunders. "Tell your Sergeant to tell his _wife _thank you for the recipe. She has to be married to him because no decent woman would have Kirby." He started laughing too.

Kirby came in from guard duty, stomping the snow off his boots. "Man, it's COLD out there! What's so funny?"

Doc, Littlejohn, and McCall were whooping with laughter, and Saunders looked like he'd been eating a bag of lemons.

"Mavis said thank you for Alex's recipe." Saunders said, glaring at the rest of the squad. "they won. What did you do with Caje?"

"He went to eat. I saw the mail jeep come in -" Kirby looked disappointedly at his pallet.

"You got mail!' McCall said, retrieving it. "We got so involved in Littlejohn's letter -" he looked at the giant and they started laughing again.

"Knock it off." Saunders growled.

Kirby had a letter from Alex and he didn't even hear them.


End file.
